ALDO MARTINEZ JR. / THE JERSEY JOURNAL St. Anthony's boys' basketball coach Bob Hurley and his team get together during a timeout against Monmouth Regional.

No, no, a thousand times no.

Bob Hurley was already down in a defensive stance before the question could be asked (well, figuratively — he was actually on his couch), because he gets it every day, and anticipation has always been a forte.

Only this time he brought it up, as he segued from a talk about St. Anthony’s $1.3 million shortfall, the latest fund-raising initiatives, and the myriad nightmares he and the nuns will endure to overcome the annual deficit.

“Grandma, what do you think?” Hurley calls over his shoulder to his wife and consigliere, Chris. “How much time do we do something school-related?”

Chris is half-listening. She’s making a pasta fagioli that smells like Neopolitan nirvana, but second-guessing her decision to omit onions. So he answers for himself.

“It’s probably two hours every day,” Hurley said. “And every year I know somebody on our schedule that is in danger of closing. That’s the nature of Catholic education right now.

“So people say, ‘How long you want to coach?’ I would like to turn the reins over to someone else when I just don’t want to coach anymore. But right now, keeping the school open and having a place to coach these kids is the only thing (that matters)."

Okay, not the time to harp on it. At 63, Hurley has entertained dozens of college jobs, and has sent every search committee away. It won’t change now — especially tonight, when The Great Man Himself goes for victory No. 1,000 in a game against St. Mary’s, weather permitting.

So how high is up? Does he go after fellow Hall of Famer Morgan Wootten’s record of 1,274, which may take nine more years?

“Eleven-hundred is the next number,” Hurley said. “If (Wootten) stays at the top of the pedestal, that’s fine, because he’s a wonderful man.

“And last August,” he said of his Springfield induction, “was all the validation I needed.”

Consider the job he had as a probation officer: Hurley estimated that he had a .250 win percentage during those 28 years. Meaning, he kept one out of four out of jail, and that recidivism rate didn’t cut it.

His record as a player wasn’t good enough, either. He was cut as a sophomore at St. Peter’s, and it compelled him to prepare other kids for such a setback — how to absorb it and grow from it.

Along the way, if he has to scare the hell out of every last one with a drill sergeant’s methods — so they remain in line and out of the clutches of the Bloods and Cripps — so be it.

“It’s simple,” Terry Dehere once told us. “When you get right down to it, Coach Hurley doesn’t just create dreams, he saves lives.”

Bob Hurley Sr goes for his 1000th winAfter nearly 40 years at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, boys basketball coach Bob Hurley Sr. stands one game away from 1000 wins for his career. Video by John Munson/The Star-Ledger

This state has produced countless brilliant high school coaches, yet none are quite like Hurley, because the measure of a coach is not based on the number of W’s, but by the size of his challenges. Before Hurley, we really didn’t think of a school as an sanctuary. Before Hurley, we really didn’t measure coaching success by, as Dehere put it, saving lives.

So that’s why he does this.

And no one has ever done it better, judging by his record at St. Anthony’s — not the 999-110 record, but the 99 percent success rate in sending kids to college, including 160 of them via scholarship.

He says the kids haven’t changed in his 38 years as varsity coach. He’s right, in one respect: They all still look at him as though they are standing at the feet of a giant.

Though as of late, he’s a soft one. Blame his grandson, Gabriel, a 21-month-old that occupies all of his spare time.

“Sometimes,” Hurley said, nodding toward the kitchen, “Grandma and I haven’t been in the adult world all day. We’re running around playing games, it’s utterly ridiculous. So the kids see a side of me when I first get to practice like, ‘Wow, mellow.’

“But that can change in 15 minutes. As kids are getting thrown out, they see the demands are still there, even if I come through the door relaxed and very positive. I’m still very demanding. And the longer practice goes on, and the closer we are to a big game, the more I feel like the old days. Because the game is as important as it was 25 years ago.”

Important? Certainly, the games appeal to his competitive spirit, and he deserves the thrill of flying past yet another milestone. But with each passing year, each one is a mere milepost for young men whose lives are forever altered by the greatest coach in New Jersey history.